This, however, alters nothing with regard to the nature of those
operations of the globe. The system is still the same. It only protracts
the indefinite space of time in its existence, while it gives us a view
of another distinct period of the living world; that is to say, the
world which we inhabit is composed of the materials, not of the earth
which was the immediate predecessor of the present, but of the earth
which, in ascending from the present, we consider as the third, and
which had preceded the land that was above the surface of the sea, while
our present land was yet beneath the water of the ocean. Here are three
distinct successive periods of existence, and each of these is, in our
measurement of time, a thing of indefinite duration.
We have now got to the end of our reasoning; we have no data further
to conclude immediately from that which actually is: But we have got
enough; we have the satisfaction to find, that in nature there is
wisdom, system, and consistency. For having, in the natural history of
this earth, seen a succession of worlds, we may from this conclude that
there is a system in nature; in like manner as, from seeing revolutions
of the planets, it is concluded, that there is a system by which they
are intended to continue those revolutions.
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